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Jun 26 Lifted Geek's E3 Highlights - Top 5 Best & Worst

Welcome to
Lifted Geek’s E3 2013 highlights. Did we go?!?! No. But living vicariously
through their livestreaming sort of counts right? Anyway this year’s E3 Expo press
conferences unveiled some amazing upcoming games and developments from publishers
that gamers won’t want to miss for
nearly all platforms. Not only that, but one of the biggest
announcements came from Sony and Microsoft on the final pricing of their new
upgraded counterparts due to release at the end of 2013.

Not everything
was nearly as exciting as we may have hoped, so here are some of my top 5 and
worst 5 highlights of E3.

Best 5

1.
Sony’s press conference revealed PS4’s pricing
and features, and the MSRP is about $100 dollars cheaper than the XBOX One. This is great news for all
of us PlayStation fans, including the reminder that (a) we can trade games (b) sell it (c) share it (d) keep it forever (forever is relative). Oh, and we don’t need
to be connected online to play! Of course all that was a direct response to…
well we’ll talk about that later.

2.
Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XV for PS4. Definitely excited for this, especially since way back in E3 2006, Square Enix originally announced as Final Fantasy
Versus XIII for the PS3 but apparently had been in development since then.
Rumors of it being cancelled arose too, and we just didn’t know what was happening
until Tetsuya Nomura, director of FF Versus XIII, revealed FF Versus XIII as FFXV
for the PS4. The gameplay is amazing and I am absolutely thrilled for this game to come out.

3.
Square Enix’s development of Kingdom Hearts 3
for PS4 – really guys, the long awaited sequel is finally here (but currently still in development), but WHO ISN’T
EXCITED?? Disney and Final Fantasy mashed up in to an epic game, I love
it. I love Mickey. And Cloud-o.

4.
Microsoft’s press conference revealed Project
Spark for Xbox One, developed by Team Dakota. It pretty much reminds me of a
mix between Little Big Planet and an RPG.
You use the Kinect and SmartGlass to build this world from scratch and create
environments, plants, animals, and topography using voice commands. The items/objects you create can have
programmed behaviors e.g. you can make a pet rock follow you around and bounce.
Pretty much anything can be made. You even create enemy monsters and program
its behavior and characteristics, and your pet rock can help fight and defend
your town. There are so much more details to this but this was definitely by
far the most interesting game in development announced at Microsoft’s press
conference and it is also a free-to-play game.

5.
Nintendo’s press conference (live in Japan)
announced the new Super Smash Brothers for the Wii U. The new game will have additional characters
including Mega Man, and Villager. Mega Man hasn't been in the spotlight much and so this is a great way for him to come back and gain some popularity back.

"just let it happen, it'll be over soon" is absolutely a rape joke. Not cool Microsoft and Killer Instinct dev, not cool...

Worst 5

1.
Microsoft’s Xbox One pricing – a whopping
$499 that doesn’t include sharing games, trading games, and you can only play connected
to the internet (oh and a mandatory 24 hour check in)*. I’m not really an Xbox player, but
even after hearing this announcement, I almost thought I heard crickets in the
audience. * ed note: since then, this has been rescinded, Microsoft has back peddled in response to all the bad press they have been getting... too little too late maybe?

2.
Nintendo’s press conference was honestly a
little boring to me – most of the games they revealed were for the Wii U and
they were all remakes of classics such as Super Mario World and Donkey Kong. Oh
and sure, Pokemon X & Y but honestly – Pokemon lost me after Silver &
Gold. I didn’t really see where Nintendo
was going but they haven't taken any big risks to compete with PS4 and Xbox.

3. Microsoft's XBox One's Kinect camera - it will always be watching you. Always. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I'm sure most people wonder why it needs to always be on. Can't you just turn it on when it comes time to play? A little questionable...

4. Call of Duty: Ghosts. It didn't really look like a next gen game, and looks like any other CoD game made out there. I couldn't really tell the difference between Xbox 360's CoD and Xbox One's CoD. Oh, a dog gets to play with you now. And you get to see more wrinkles in your hands and maybe a cut or bruise here and there. Something like that.

5. The Killer Instinct "rape joke" debacle. No this isn't considered over reacting and "just let it happen, it'll be over soon" is absolutely a rape joke. Not cool Microsoft and Killer Instinct dev, not cool. The problem is that it was said so casually like it was nothing, this is a big problem and not something that should be glossed over by "oh he didn't mean anything malicious by it" or "he's actually a great guy." It's a problem when it can be dismissed like that. No bones about it!

There you have it! Not everything we hoped for but we can't expect everything to be perfect right? Otherwise everyone's top 5 would be exactly the same and that's just boring ;) We can't wait for the upcoming new games and we look forward to future developments that were announced. The indie games are receiving a ton of support from Microsoft and Sony as well.